


Frame, Set and Match

by pudupudu



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Blame Russell Lewis, Gen, I'm clearly evil
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-26
Updated: 2014-04-26
Packaged: 2018-01-20 21:10:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1525865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pudupudu/pseuds/pudupudu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Morse in prison and Thursday unconscious in a hospital bed, it is up to those who love them to try and put things right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Frame, Set and Match

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Linguini](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linguini/gifts).



> Presumes knowledge of the events of series 2

A white hot flash of pain. Worse, much worse, than the last time he had been shot. His vision tunnelled and he was falling within a breath. A sharp inhale of shock and he managed to open his eyes once more before he collapsed, gun falling uselessly from lax fingers; his last blurry sight then was of Morse, frozen, and he felt a twinge of something more acute than pain. There was nothing he could do, though, as he slumped on an exhale.

 _Win_ his mind supplied in supplication, and then darkness.

**************************

Morse bristled as more charges were added to the indignities already heaped upon him. ‘Conspiracy to murder’ in the case of Deare and poor, poor Angela and ‘attempted murder’ in the case of one Frederick Thursday. Morse’s mind barely stopped to process the implications of ‘conspiracy’ (if he was a conspirator, who did they imagine the murderer was? Surely not Thursday?) as his ears rang with ‘attempted murder.’ _Attempted_. Fred was alive. There was still hope.

He felt his legs give out under him, but this time there was no kindly Inspector there to break his fall.

**************************

“Oh _Fred_ ” Win clasped his cold hand with what must have been a bruising force. “The things they’re saying… about you. About Morse. They say he was the one that shot you and that the two of you were involved in so many things…” She swiped a tear with her free hand, a hot bead of bitter anger rather than sorrow; her husband was a good man and Morse would never harm him. “You need to wake up, Fred, you need to prove them wrong. We need to prove them wrong,” she’d be damned if she allowed his good name to be tarnished. Resolution dried her tears.

There was a police guard on the door to prevent the escape of the motionless man she loved; it took all her restraint not to punch him.

**************************

Having failed to bury Fred’s body, Chard and his fellows were thorough in their attempts to inter his reputation. They delved into every detail of Fred’s life, twisting facts to suit their means and planting additional seeds along the way. A thorough search of the Thursdays house revealed several items which certainly hadn’t been there before they arrived and Joan and Sam had had to physically restrain their mother as she railed at the officers who had turned her house, and her life, upside down.

Joan sat with her mum on the sofa, holding onto her tightly as she shook. There were no tears, they were all of them beyond such expressions of grief. There was a knock at the door and Sam opened it warily, standing to his full height and trying to puff himself out, to broaden his shoulders to allow them to bear this sudden weight of being the man of the de facto man of the house. There was a woman he didn’t recognise by sight on their doorstep and he eyed her suspiciously- the current climate was far too stormy for courtesy. “Yes?” he questioned gruffly.

After a brief exchange, he poked his head through to the living room “a Miss Frazil here to see you, mum.”

**************************

Before long Fred Thursday’s file was beginning to resemble the rap sheet of a hardened gangster rather than the history of a good-hearted and first rate policeman. Chief Superintendent Bright was called into the investigation because of his rank, but he wasn’t given access to everything at first as the County men were wary of his relationship with the accused. Soon he managed to ingratiate himself through a fine balance of pomposity and sycophanticism; it was a means to an end, and he never let his true thoughts show. At work, at least.

One evening found him frozen, a marble statue on his sofa, empty whisky glass in hand. This was how his wife found him when she returned from whichever social engagement she had been attending that evening. Frowning as she removed her coat, she called to him questioningly, at with a stern “Reginald?” but then with more warmth as she realised he hadn’t merely dozed into a stupor. “Reg?” he looked up at her then and there was such a depth of feeling behind his glasses that she found herself taking a step back.

They hadn’t been close for years, not really. Despite his professional rank, self-recriminations about his own perceived inadequacies had made him distant from Ethel who had turned her childless attentions from her role as devoted wife to that of social butterfly. That night, though, he talked to her, he told her the facts- taking both relief and some delight from the risk he was taking to involve an outside party- and for the first time in a long, long while he told her of his feelings. They made love that night, and Ethel had fallen asleep in his arms rather than in her separate room.

Roused in the morning as Bright extracted himself to prepare for work, she murmured after him drowsily “today you must start to make it right- by whatever means.” Bright froze in the doorway, nodded silently, and then went to finish his ablutions.

**************************

Sam protested against going to school when there was important work to be done at home, but he was silenced into submission by a look from his mother. Joan, however, had arranged a leave of absence from work and that morning saw two Thursday women entering the offices of the Oxford Mail. Miss Frazil- Dorothea- was there to meet them. “Come on through,” she ushered, leading the way to her office. She then summoned a suitably deferential looking reporter to bring them all hot drinks- two coffees and a tea.

As soon as the drinks were obtained, the editor closed the door and rolled down the blinds “it’s clear we can trust few in this godawful mess” she stated by way of explanation. Both Win and Joan nodded grimly, drinks as yet untouched. Dorothea smiled slightly to herself at their guarded poses, feeling a little proud that they weren’t yet trusting her. Good girls. _The Inspector would be proud_ \- a small private grimace- _WILL be proud_. She extracted several files from her desk and spread them out across her desk.

“We had an anonymous tip- though I have no doubt it came from somewhere high within the force- informing me of Inspector Thursday’s so-called corrupt dealings and criminal activities. I have known him well for years, and I would never for one second have considered running this utter…” words to convey her distaste ran dry and she instead gestured expansively to the files. “I’ve managed to cross-reference some of the information we’ve received with articles printed at the time the events mentioned; I called you here to see if you can help me to sift fact from fiction.”

Win uttered her affirmation, face set. Though mild looking, this was a woman who had stared disaster in the face and pushed on past it; a wife forged in war, a mother who had brought forth life in the midst of despair. Joan, however, blessed with her parents’ spirit though she was, was clearly having a harder time of keeping her emotions in check as she began to read the evidence and accusations levelled against her father by the ‘source.’ Dad meant the world to her, to her mum, to Sam, to so many whose lives would be so much the worse if he had not at some point left his mark on them.

Seeing the flickers of pain in her daughter’s face, Win took her hand and squeezed it. “Together. We’re in this together, and that’s how we’ll win through.”


End file.
